Thornleigh

Thornleigh is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Thornleigh is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Thornleigh is located 22 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Hornsby Shire. The source of the Lane Cove River is located in Thornleigh.

Thornleigh was originally part of the land that the Kuringai people settled. The first non-indigenous people to explore the area of Thornleigh were a party led by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1788. Settlers moved into the area in the 1830s and among them were James Milson, Patrick Duffy, John Thorn and Samuel Horne. Thornleigh is named after Constable John Thorn, who, along with Constable Horne, captured bushrangers Dalton and John MacNamara, leader of the North Rocks gang, on 22 June 1830, and were granted land as a reward in 1838. Horne's land became Hornsby (now Normanhurst), and Thorn's land became Thornleigh.Orcharding was one of the major mainstays of Thornleigh during the late nineteenth century.

Land sales posters used this as an attraction for prospective settlers describing the area as "beautifully situated (and) surrounded by magnificent orchards, the fruit from which affords a splendid proof of the ferlility of the soil and mildness of the climate".

Among the orchard growers was Patrick Michael Duffy, after which Duffy Avenue was named. After Patrick Duffy's passing, his land was subdivided and passed down to his son Patrick Duffy Jnr. Eventually part of this land was purchased by the wealthy Friend family who built the Windyhaugh property on Duffy Avenue, which was later used as the first Presbyterian Fellowship Union camp in the Commonwealth.As part of the construction of the railway from Strathfield to Hornsby, a 1.2 km branch was constructed in 1884 by the contractors to a quarry in a gully west of Thornleigh. The tracks included a zig zag section.Thornleigh railway station opened on 17 September 1886 where the local produce (mainly citrus fruits) was exported to the city markets. Fruit grown at Thornleigh was also being exported as far as Vancouver and San Francisco.Thornleigh Post Office opened on 12 March 1888.The Thornleigh School of Arts opened in 1890 and was demolished in 1980 along with many other locations of historical significance in the suburb throughout the commercial development of the area in the 1970s and 1980s. These include the Astra Theatre (Originally named the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1923), the Royal Hotel, Thornleigh Public School with its World War I memorial and the original Edwardian structures at Thornleigh Railway Station. The Thornleigh Community Centre was constructed by the local and state government in order to compensate the community for the demolition of the Thornleigh School of Arts.In 1901, the National Brickworks started operations at Thornleigh. In 1913, the largest malt works in the southern hemisphere was established by WG Chilvers. Chilvers Road was named after William George Chilvers.

Other streets with notable names include Norman Avenue, named after the Australian engineer Norman Selfe.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment was a problem in the area, so a local woman named Lorna Brandt raised money for the construction of a walking track near the Lane Cove River as a way of providing relief work. The track begins at Thornleigh Oval, at the bottom of Handley Avenue, and goes through the bush towards the Lane Cove River. It then goes parallel to the river for a short distance before looping back to arrive at Comenarra Parkway. An extension goes down to the river, through a spot called Conscript Pass. At this spot, there are rock carvings done by the men who worked on the track. One of the carvings is a caricature of Bertram Stevens, Premier of New South Wales from 1932 to 1939. The track is known as Lorna Pass in memory of Lorna Brandt, and is now part of the Great North Walk, a long-distance walking trail between Sydney and Newcastle.Plans to establish a university at Thornleigh in response to the large number of enrollments at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales were discussed in the early 1960s due to Thornleigh being "Central to the Northern Line and the North Shore", however, the university was eventually established in the suburb of Macquarie Park and is now known as Macquarie University.